As much as I admire people who plan their meals, I've long since given up hope of joining their ranks. Closest I get is leaving the grocery store with the vague intention of, sometime this week, making a pot roast and a batch of chili.
Still I don't throw much away. Cilantro more often than anything else because I try to keep it on hand always and sometimes don't prep it for storage as well as I should. But the weekly cleanup day before going to the store is such a good idea and so simple that I might be able to keep it up.

My clean-out day isn't set, but I like to plan it for the day I'll be doing a big grocery run. That way I know when I get home, that night's dinner is taken care of. My problem starts if I overestimate the space I will have in the fridge for the amount of food that I buy. I have, on rare occasion, resorted to keeping a few pieces of sturdy produce in a cooler with a bottle of ice.

I believe that if you plan your meals ahead, before you shop, and you pretty much stick to that list, it's easier to not have a ton of leftovers. Unless you PLAN leftovers, which is something I do regularly. Even so, it does get used before it has the chance to spoil.

Yeah, if you do a weekly shopping. But I shop once a month. So I plan my meals on what meats I found on sale on the day I went shopping.

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Illegitimi non carborundum!
I don't want my last words to be, "I wish I had spent more time doing housework"

I agree with the idea of planning meals, before you shop. When cooking for one or two I think it also helps to think in terms of portion control similar to a restaruant and plan accordingly. I try to fix things that have no leftovers or things that allow me to freeze the leftovers in meal size packages. I've also had to "right size" some of my recipes to scale them down to a couple of servings from the original four or six servings.

DC has been a great help in learning and unlearning various strategies to help me manage my kitchen! It is nice to be able to exchange information with real people who have similar situations. Sometimes we are able to help each other solve a small problem, other times all we can do is laugh about them and move on!

As much as I admire people who plan their meals, I've long since given up hope of joining their ranks. Closest I get is leaving the grocery store with the vague intention of, sometime this week, making a pot roast and a batch of chili.
Still I don't throw much away. Cilantro more often than anything else because I try to keep it on hand always and sometimes don't prep it for storage as well as I should. But the weekly cleanup day before going to the store is such a good idea and so simple that I might be able to keep it up.

I have often thawed a package of this or that, then gone to the fridge and pantry to see what I could knock together, rather than planning it all out ahead. My version of a "Chopped!" basket.